October 16, 2025

Free Planet Radio - A Celebration of World Music

Folkmoot USA is thrilled to present A Celebration of World Music featuring Free Planet Radio with special guests, Adam Maalouf & Aparna Keshaviah.  Free Planet Radio expertly weaves the improvisatory element of jazz including the subtleties and harmonic vocabulary of Western classical music with Middle Eastern, Indian and North African melodic and rhythmic structures. 

Free Planet Radio consists of River Guerguerian on an extensive array of global percussion instruments including Middle Eastern frame drums and doumbek, the Indian kanjira, African djembe, and Western drum set; and Chris Rosser exploring melody on guitar, piano, melodica, seventeen-stringed Indian dotar, Turkish çümbüs and oud.

Performing mostly original compositions, even while playing extremely complex melodies and time signatures, the duo always maintains a sense of accessibility, spontaneity, and easy engagement with the audience.

Adam Maalouf is a Lebanese-American multi-instrumentalist and composer. His cross-genre style of music forms a common thread between the cultures of the East and West.  While Maalouf will be performing primarily on cello, his playing style on the Pan-Tam represents the cross-pollination of diverse influences, including western classical, Jazz, Arabic, and Indian classical music and electronica.

Adam holds a BA in Percussion Performance from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY and an MBA in Music Business from Berklee School of Music. After school, curiosity drew Adam to India and the Middle East to study under renowned hand-percussion masters.  Adam approaches teaching music through a diverse and well-rounded rhythmic and musical vocabulary that will take students on a global journey around the Middle East, India, Cuba, Brazil and beyond.

Aparna Keshaviah is an American-born daughter of south Indian immigrants.  Valuing hybridity, she uses the traditional lexicon of Bharatanatyam to tell stories through dance that extend beyond place, culture and mythology to touch on the universal human condition.

Aparna’s choreography involves two major veins of exploration: animating the percussive footwork of Bharatanatyam through rhythmic isolation and improvisation and abstracting gestural storytelling to open the cross-cultural expressive potential. In both these veins, she deconstructs the form, teasing apart the tightly woven layers of Indian dance so that contemporary audiences and media can more deeply engage. 

---

November 13, 2025

Rudy’s Bluegrass Revue - A Night of Hot Bluegrass

Folkmoot LIVE! is pleased to present A Night of Hot Bluegrass featuring Rudy’s Bluegrass Revue delivering dynamic Bluegrass, Americana and roots music with a contemporary flair, steeped in tradition while balancing a cutting edge sound.  Prepare yourself for an engaging experience sure to keep your toes tapping and spirits dancing.  This incredible trio includes composer and multi-instrumentalist, Rudy Cortese, a five time Four Corner States banjo champion who has been performing on stage since the age of twelve.  

Elizabeth Kronlage will delight your senses on tenor guitar, cello and harmony vocals.  Elizabeth and Rudy were the 2019 duet vocalist winners of the Four Corner States Bluegrass Festival Championships.  Rounding out the trio is Chris Carter on upright bass, a Madison County native steeped in the Appalachian bluegrass music scene for more than twenty years.  Join us for a true bluegrass mountain experience.

---

December 11, 2025

TBA